Reed Remastered review for PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, Switch

Reed Remastered is kind of deceptive. It has a lot of the features you might associate with twitch platformers: the levels are all short, you die constantly, and there are flashing lights and pulsing sounds that make you feel like you should be trying to speedrun your way through every level.

Yet putting Reed Remastered in the same category as, say, Super Meat Boy would be a big mistake — and not just because it?s not nearly as good. Rather, you learn early on — after the single enemy is introduced, but before every level starts featuring the constant threat of whirring blades — that it?s actually a fairly traditional platformer, one that rewards taking your time and carefully planning out all your moves. If you just jump from ledge to ledge, you?re going to die, and you?re going to die regularly enough that…well, that you may start thinking that it does belong in the same category as a game like SMB.

That?s not to say Reed Remastered doesn?t expect players to have their reflexes working. There are plenty of tricky jumps that you have to time just right. It?s just that, more often than not, you?re better off waiting a moment. It may feel like you?re racing against the clock, but if you look closely (or, I guess, if you take a second to look at all), you realize there?s no clock here to be found.

Other than the fact it looks like a twitch platformer but it?s not, there?s not really anything particularly noteworthy about Reed Remastered. It?s got the de rigeur retro graphics, albeit ones that are more 16-bit era than 8-bit. There?s no story to speak of, beyond some intro bit with a computer that never gets referenced again. The main character looks like a cat, so I guess it has that going for it. But on the whole, it doesn?t do anything that?ll stick with you for any longer than the short time it?ll take you to beat the game.

Of course, there are worse things in the world than solidly unremarkable platformers, so from that perspective, I can?t say I disliked Reed Remastered. It?s a decent enough game that improves a little when you realize that it?s not actively trying to kill you at every opportunity. Not exactly the stuff of eventual GOTY material or anything, but I?ve definitely played worse.

Ratalaika Games provided us with a Reed Remastered PS4/Vita code for review purposes.